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Pierre Dorion’s Trade Track Record

Despite having worn the GM-mantle for less than three years, Dorion has amassed a long list of trades. Given that his biggest deal is fresh in everyone’s memory, I think it’s worth diving into his history, even if the ultimate result of several deals remain up in the air.

Generally speaking the ‘winner’ of a trade is the team that gets the best player, but context does matter so it’s not always that simple (a playoff rental, for example, even if he is best player, may not ultimately return the most value). For each trade I’ve gone through why I think the trade was either won or lost and for visual clarity I’ve colour-coded those thoughts (green are wins, red are fails, equal value have no colour, and italics represent those which remain undetermined):

2016 (4)1st (Michael McLeod) & 3rd (Joey Anderson) picks for 1st (Logan Brown) from New Jersey
The Devils picked McLeod slightly ahead of projections and Anderson after them; the Sens landed Brown slightly after projectionsAlex Chiasson for Patrick Sieloff (Calgary)
Chiasson: 81-12-12-24 (playoffs 4-0-0-0) > Wsh
Sieloff: AHL 110-3-19-22, NHL 1-1-0-1
The Flames got a single middling season from Chiasson before he left to win a Cup with Washington (he’s now on a PTO with Edmonton); Sieloff has been an unremarkable blueliner at the AHL-level who is going into his third season with the org–while it’s spare part for spare part, the Flames got 80 more NHL games than Sieloff will ever get with OttawaMika Zibanejad & 2nd (Jonatan Berggren) for Derick Brassard & 7th (Luke Loheit) from NYR
Zibanejad: 128-41-43-84 (playoffs 12-2-7-9)
Brassard: 139-32-45-77 (playoffs 19-4-7-11) > Pit
Mika is the better player and the Sens didn’t even get two full seasons from Brassard–his numbers aren’t even as good as Zibanejad’s in the playoffs; the pick wound up with Detroit (who picked Berggren slightly early); Loheit will almost certainly never be signed5th (Jan Drozg) for Mike Condon (Pittsburgh)
Condon: 71-24-31-11 .908 2.81
I’m not a huge Condon fan, but he’s played a lot and Drozg wasn’t expected to be drafted; we still can’t truly start to judge it until the latter’s career is sorted out, but it’s a likely win

2017 (7)Buddy Robinson, Zack Stortini, & 7th (Matthew Hellickson) for Tommy Wingels (San Jose)
Wingels: 36-2-2-4 (playoffs 9-0-0-0) > Chicago
Robinson: AHL 33-10-9-19 > Winnipeg
Stortini: AHL 26-1-0-1 > Carolina
Wingels was acquired for the playoffs where he accomplished nothing, but the pick was flipped to New Jersey and Robinson signed with the Winnipeg afterwards, so while I think it was a useless trade technically the Sens received more valueFuture Considerations for Marc Hagel from Minnesota
Hagel: AHL 27-0-3-3 > Norway
Whatever the Wild got for Hagel–cup of coffee, slab of bacon, etc–is of equal value to Hagel bungling around Binghamton’s lineup for 27 games (he’s now playing in Denmark)Jonathan Dahlen for Alex Burrows (Vancouver)
Burrows: 91-12-13-25 (playoffs 15-0-5-5) > buyout
This trade was always for the ‘now’ and after providing nothing in the Sens playoff run Burrows had to be bought out after he was re-signed–losing this deal is less about Dahlen’s projections and more about just how irrelevant Burrows was3rd (Evan Barratt) for Viktor Stalberg (Carolina)
Stalberg: 18-2-2-4 (playoffs 17-0-2-2) > NLA
Trading for the playoff run Stalberg was generally useless; Barratt was taken early, so final evaluation hangs in the balance of him getting a cup of coffee in the NHL or notCurtis Lazar & Mike Kostka for Jyrki Jokipakka & 2nd (Alex Formenton) from Calgary
Lazar: 69-3-12-15 (playoffs 1-0-0-0)
Kostka: AHL 15-2-10-12 > SHL
Jokipakka: 3-0-0-0 > KHL
Dumping Lazar and getting Formenton in the return is a win (Koskta’s partial season in the minors is a wash with Jokipakka essentially not dressing for the Sens)Future Considerations for Brandon Gormley (New Jersey)
Much like Hagel above, the box of donuts exchanged for Gormley is equivalent valueKyle Turris, Andrew Hammond, Shane Bowers, 1st (2019) & 3rd (Justus Annunen) for Matt Duchene (Colorado)
Turris: 65-13-29-42 (playoffs 13-0-3-3) <Nsh>
Hammond: 1-0-1-0 .939 2.07 (playoffs 3-1-1 .933 2.63) > Min
Duchene: 68-23-26-49
The Sens hugely overpaid for a player who is likely to leave the org with less than two full seasons in the books and zero playoff appearances; Annunen was taking just slightly later than expected, but the 1st-rounder could blow this out of the water

2018 (7)Dion Phaneuf & Nate Thompson for Marian Gaborik & Nick Shore (Los Angeles)
Phaneuf: 26-3-7-10 (playoffs 4-0-1-1)
Thompson: 26-1-5-6 (playoffs 4-0-0-0)
Gaborik: 16-4-3-7 > LTIR
Shore: 6-0-1-1 > Cal
The Sens got a handful of games from both players while the Kings have an asset (of sorts) in PhaneufChris DiDomenico for Ville Pokka from Chicago
DiDomenico: AHL 22-8-15-23 > NLA
Pokka: AHL 23-3-8-11 > KHL
While both players left for Europe at the end of the year, DiDomenico had a much larger impact in the minors (putting up great playoff numbers for Rockford)Derick Brassard, Vincent Dunn, & 3rd (Jesper Eliasson) for Ian Cole, Filip Gustavsson, 1st (Jacob Bernard-Docker), & 3rd (2019) from Pittsburgh
Brassard: 14-3-5-8 (playoffs 12-1-3-4)
Dunn: <loaned back to ECHL Brampton>
Gustavsson: 2-4-0 .912 3.01
Detroit got the pick (Eliasson wasn’t highly regarded), Cole was flipped (see below), so it’s going to boil down to Brassard, Bernard-Docker, and the 3rdNick Shore for 7th (2019) from Calgary
Shore: 9-1-2-3 > FA
It’s 9 games of Shore for the Flames versus whomever the Sens draft (the odds favour Calgary, but one never knows)Ian Cole for Nick Moutrey & 3rd (2020) from Columbus
Cole: 20-2-5-7 (playoffs 6-0-3-3) > Colorado
Moutrey: AHL 16-2-3-5
Cole played 20 games for the Blue Jackets and Moutrey was allowed to walk after doing nothing in the minors, so it comes down to the pick (this favours Columbus)Mike Hoffman, Cody Donaghey, & 5th (2020) for Mikkel Boedker, Julius Bergman, & 6th (2020) from San Jose
Because Hoffman was immediately flipped to Florida for picks tracking this trade gets messy, but there’s no question the best player involved is Hoffman and there’s no one remotely comparable in the returnErik Karlsson & Francis Perron for Chris Tierney, Dylan DeMelo, Josh Norris, Rudolfs Balcers, 1st (2020), & 2nd (2019) + two conditional picks from San Jose
Unless the 1st-round pick they get from the Sharks turns out to be the first overall there’s no chance they even close to a match in return

Dorion’s Win/Loss/Even (Undetermined) Record (18): 2-8-3 (5)

It’s clear from the above that this is not a man who makes smart trades–you might quibble with one or two of the above, but the general picture is a man who can’t deliver the goods when the stakes are high. What’s truly scary is the trades have been getting worse over time. I’ve long complained that the Sens pro scouting is terrible and these scenarios are evidence of that.

The asterisk that always has to be applied to any evaluation of Dorion, of course, is what sort of constraints he’s working under from Melnyk. That aside, I think it certainly seems like Dorion is preparing for hockey the way it was played 10 or 15 years ago. He learned most of what he knows from Bryan Murray, and sadly, it shows. A guy who doesn’t have the ability to analyze and evaluate the game itself is never going to be anything but a disaster when it comes to evaluating the players playing it. What I really can’t understand is why Melnyk keeps him around. Perhaps his ability/willingness to compromise the athletic integrity of the team for the sake of the bottom line is worth more to Eugene than his apparently neverending habit of signing marginal players to contracts they’ll never live up to, and which handcuff the org’s ability to ice the best team possible. Prime examples being Smith, Harpur and McCormick; all three of whom I fully expect to see on the roster come opening day despite being thoroughly outplayed throughout the pre-season. Despite all this, I actually feel bad for Dorion. He must realize by now that when his tenure ends here he’ll never get another GM gig. He’s hitched his wagon to Melnyk’s star and has no choice now but to go all the way down the rabbit hole…if you can excuse the mixed metaphore 🙂
I think as fans, our only real hope is that Melnyk’s plan is to hold on to the team only until Lebreton flats is finally, irrevocably approved. I honestly can’t see a guy who needs to waive Zack Smith to save bucks shelling out 300 mil for a new arena…but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Melnyk’s fingerprints are certainly involved in some of the deals and Dorion wouldn’t have his position if he wasn’t a ‘yes man’ for the owner. I agree that Murray shared a similar philosophy to Dorion, although at least in terms of *drafting* Murray took more chances on skill than Dorion says he will.

Melnyk keeps Dorion around for two reasons: 1) he does as he’s told, 2) he shares Dorion’s outdated ideas of how hockey works. Both are self-delusional and use confirmation bias to justify what they do. Remember that Melnyk was overjoyed when Murray traded for Matt Kassian–he’s a guy who believes in old-time hockey and Dorion shares that belief.

I’m not sure Dorion truly understands how badly he’s damaging his career. He likely has a future as a scout no matter what happens, but his public comments indicate that he’s consistently out of touch the impressions he’s making, so I don’t think he realizes this will be his first and last gig as a GM.

My hope, actually, is that Lebreton is rejected and that forces him to sell. A new arena would keep him around for much, much longer and right now he’s seriously damaging not only the brand but hockey operations itself with apparent demands to cut costs (not that giving Dorion more money would actually improve the team).